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Saturday, July 2, 2016

Weekend Cooking: The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook

I don’t think it should come as any surprise that I like to collect cookbooks when I travel, especially if it’s a historical site. So my trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum was no different, and there were actually several to choose from because of their celebration of the immigrant culture during the 1800s in New York City. So the cookbook I ultimately chose is The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook by Tom Bernardin. While I haven’t yet made any of the recipes yet, mostly due to my diet at the moment and also not yet having time to read through them all, I wanted to feature the book this week.

This is not just your standard curated cookbook, but it is an immigrant history through food. Bernardin solicited recipes from immigrants who had arrived in the United States at Ellis Island or from the children or grandchildren of those immigrants. When you read through these recipes you get the feeling of true Old World home cooking. Beyond the recipes, stories and anecdotes from those recipe submitters are included as well, so you get even more heart here. The recipe section is divided up by country, so if you are looking for a recipe from your family’s heritage or for a specific type of cuisine that makes it easy. My problem is that I don’t know what most of the recipes are in this book, so that type of division doesn’t help me much. There is an index at the back of the book that is arranged alphabetically by title, but that still doesn’t help me. I could seriously benefit from an index divided by main ingredient (i.e. beef, chicken, fish, bread, etc.) so I would at least know what I am looking at to some extent.

My family originally hales from Germany (on both sides), so some dishes of interest include: Open Face Bavarian Peach Pie and German Apple Cake. My husband’s family is French Canadian, so when I looked in the France section, there was one recipe, French Peas, and if you know my husband, the food he hates the most is peas, so we probably won’t be making that dish!

While this is a cookbook first, it also involves many other elements too. There is a brief history of Ellis Island, as well as a description of food at Ellis Island.

There is a cool visual of the type of fare that would be served to those who had to remain detailed at Ellis. Ninety-Nine years ago today, this is what was being served (I totally stumbled upon this discovery!):

BREAKFAST:

Apple sauce

Oatmeal served in soup plates

Bread & butter

Coffee (tea on request)

Milk & crackers for children

DINNER:

Rice soup

Boiled mutton with brown gravy

Green peas-potatoes

Bread & butter

Milk & crackers for children

SUPPER:

Pork and Beans (NY style)

Stewed fruit

Bread & butter

Tea (Coffee on request)

Milk & crackers for children

*Milk & crackers for children will be served between regular meals.

From page 25.

Not the worst of menus that could be served, but I don’t think I would necessarily want to eat it for long.

This is a very cool cookbook that I am looking forward to preparing recipes from! So stay tuned for that experience!

I really enjoyed my visit to that museum; didn't buy anything in the gift shop. Your description makes it sound like this isn't one of the best books about the cooking of immigrants, neither from the standpoint of choice of material nor of organization of the recipes.

When you think about the vast numbers of people who came through Ellis Island, you wonder if the method of just finding them or their descendants is really a particularly clever way of getting recipes -- it's casting a pretty wide net!

From what I understand, the author was a long-time National Park Ranger at Ellis Island, so he probably had access to some records from which to start with for reaching out to families of immigrants - then it all depends on who responds, so yes, there is some element of chance involved there. I think it is a fantastic book in terms of immigrant recipes - there is a range of dishes from breakfast to desserts and there are probably 30 or so countries that are included here. It's not a history book on their cooking, no, but they are dishes from the homeland that were passed down through families. And I loved the inclusion of personal stories of the experiences at Ellis Island or how the recipes were served etc. Not the best in terms of organization, but a lovely book.

About Me

Heather, 30, USA. Hi everyone! I started my blog, The Maiden's Court, in May 2009 as a creative outlet for my reading and it has completely taken me to new places. I love sharing my reading and the things that I learn.

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